Concerns are growing in Poland about potential Russian involvement in a dramatic wiretapping scandal that rocked Polish politics in 2014, after reports emerged that the businessman convicted of organising the operation owed tens of millions of dollars to a Russian coal business.
Marek Falenta, a Polish businessman with interests in the coal industry, was convicted in 2016 of organising the operation, which involved recording 700 hours of conversations over the course of more than 80 meetings between senior politicians and officials at two Warsaw restaurants.
The people recorded included the interior minister, the finance minister, the foreign minister and the transport minister, all from Poland’s pro-European Civic Platform party, and the heads of the national bank, the supreme audit office, the government protection bureau and the central anti-corruption bureau. Two waiters were also convicted for their part in the affair.
My report for the Guardian can be found here. UPDATE: A longer report by Vanessa Gera for the Associated Press can be found here.
Christian Davies 